Rail transport is commonly used to convey passengers, goods, other materials, etc., from one location to another. To do so, two or more locomotives form a consist to push or pull freight and/or passenger cars along the rails. Locomotives also generally include network components that communicate with each other and facilitate user interaction via one or more wired and/or wireless networks to monitor and/or control the locomotive.
When a plurality of locomotives are connected to each other to form a consist, it may be desirable for the network components within one locomotive to communicate with network components in one or more other locomotives. Moreover, when sending communication data from a sending network component to a receiving network component, it may be beneficial to determine a route that the communication data should take that increases the efficiency of the overall communications system.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0093144 (the '144 patent application) to Goodermuth et al. is directed to a system for communicating data in a locomotive consist. In particular, the '144 patent application discloses transmitting data within a locomotive consist between two or more locomotives. The system described by the '144 patent application, however, does not determine how to route the data transmission in a way that improves the efficiency of the communication system.
The disclosed methods and systems are directed to solving one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems of the prior art.